Methods and systems of facilitating sharing of information among service providers

ABSTRACT

Methods and systems for a media guidance application that aggregates media content and media guidance data for users. For example, the media guidance application may aggregate content from numerous providers and provide the content through a single interface. Moreover, the media guidance application described herein may provide service providers with finder&#39;s fees for sharing information about media assets that users are interested in viewing.

BACKGROUND

In conventional systems, users have access to a plethora of mediacontent from a plurality of content providers. Unfortunately, to accessthis media content from a plurality of content providers, users oftenmust individually subscribe to and manage accounts with the variouscontent providers. Moreover, even after subscribing to each of thecontent providers, users must individually search the media contentlibraries of each content provider to find content to consume.

SUMMARY

Accordingly, methods and systems are described herein for a mediaguidance application that solves the aforementioned problems byaggregating media content for users. Specifically, the media guidanceapplication may automatically subscribe to, and/or manage accounts with,the various content providers for a user. Moreover, users may search themedia content libraries of each content provider to find content toconsume simultaneously.

For example, the media guidance application may aggregate content fromnumerous providers and provide the content through a single interface.The single interface may further facilitate coordination between variouscontent providers by allowing users to simultaneously search through themedia content libraries of each content provider and receive mediarecommendations without indicating the content provider associated withany one media asset. For example, by not indicating the content providerassociated with particular media assets, competition between contentproviders may give way to coordination. For example, by not indicatingthe content provider associated with any one media asset, users areprevented from favoring one content provider over another, which maylead to a user canceling a subscription to a disfavored contentprovider. In a related example, removing a threat of subscriptioncancellation removes an impediment for content providers to not shareuser profile information (e.g., indicating which content is preferred ornot preferred by a user) with other content providers. For example, thecontent providers can work together to recommend media content mostdesired by a user, even if that media content is not provided by them.

Accordingly, the media guidance application may recommend a media assetfrom any of the plurality of content providers to a user based on a userprofile that is aggregated from the plurality of content providers. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine that a movie,“Family Guy Movie,” is of interest to a user based on a user profile andis available from a first content provider. The media guidanceapplication may further identify that the actual movie, “Family GuyMovie,” is available from a second content provider. The media guidanceapplication may recommend the movie, “Family Guy Movie,” to the userthrough an interface that does not indicate that the information used toselect the movie came from the first content provider nor that theactual movie came from the second content provider.

In some aspects, the media guidance application may function as acloud-based aggregator of media content. The media guidance applicationmay receive, at a server, a request from a user, over a communicationsnetwork, to access media assets from the cloud-based aggregator, whereinthe media assets are available from a plurality of content providers.For example, the media guidance application may receive a request from auser to access movies. The media guidance application may retrieve, atthe server, a user profile corresponding to the user. For example, themedia guidance application may retrieve the user's profile includingdata about the user's preferences and interests.

The media guidance application may identify, at the server, a mediaasset based on the user profile from a content provider of the pluralityof content providers. For example, the media guidance application mayidentify a movie available from at least one of the plurality of contentproviders that is of interest to the user by using the data in theuser's profile. The media guidance application may transmit, over thecommunications network, an instruction to recommend, on a displayscreen, the media asset without indicating the content provider to theuser. For example, the media guidance application may transmit aninstruction to display a recommendation of the movie to the user,without indicating the content provider from which the movie isavailable.

In some embodiments, the communications network may utilize an Internetprotocol suite. For example, the communication may utilize theTransmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP).

In some embodiments, the media assets may include a first media assetavailable from a first content provider of the plurality of contentproviders and a second media asset available from a second contentprovider of the plurality of content providers. For example, the mediaassets may include a movie from a first content provider and a song froma different content provider.

In some embodiments, the user profile may be an aggregated user profilefrom the first content provider and the second content provider. Forexample, the user profile may be a combination of the user's profileswith each content provider. For example, the user profile may includethe user's movie preferences in the user profile retrieved from one ormore content providers that provides movies, and the user's musicpreferences in the user profile retrieved from one or more contentproviders that provide music.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identify themedia asset based on the user profile by retrieving a plurality of mediaassets available from the plurality of content providers. For example,the media guidance application may retrieve a list of all the moviesavailable from the plurality of content providers. The media guidanceapplication may determine whether metadata associated with each of theplurality of media assets matches data in the user profile. For example,the media guidance application may compare the genre, rating, anddescription of each movie with data in the user profile indicating whatgenres, ratings, and keywords the user has an interest in. The mediaguidance application may select the media asset based on determiningthat the media asset has metadata that matches the data in the userprofile. For example, the media guidance application may select themovie that is of greatest interest to the user based on a metadata tagthat indicates the movie is of the greatest interest to the user.

In some embodiments, the instruction to recommend the media assetwithout indicating the content provider to the user may further comprisean instruction to generate for simultaneous display, on the displaydevice, a media asset identifier associated with the media asset and alogo associated with the cloud-based aggregator. For example, the mediaguidance application may generate for display a link to the movie andthe logo of the cloud-based aggregator without generating for display anindication of the content provider from which the movie is available.

In some embodiments, the cloud-based aggregator may require asubscription. For example, the cloud-based aggregator may require usersto pay a monthly fee to use the aggregator.

In some embodiments, the user profile may include the user'ssubscription information for each content provider of the plurality ofcontent providers. For example, the user profile associated with a usermay include the information about the user's subscriptions to thedifferent content providers. For example, the user profile may includethe type of subscription the user has with the content provider andauthentication information (e.g., username, password).

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may monitor theuser's activity on the cloud-based aggregator. For example, the mediaguidance application may monitor the media assets that a user views aswell as the amount of time the user views each media asset. The mediaguidance application may update the user profile based on the user'sactivity. For example, the media guidance application may update theuser profile to include movies the user has viewed and the amount oftime the user viewed each movie. The media guidance application maytransmit data in the user profile to a content provider of the pluralityof content providers. For example, the media guidance application maytransmit the list of movies that a user has viewed to one of the contentproviders.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may transmit aninstruction to recommend the media asset without indicating the contentprovider to the user by identifying content providers from which themedia asset is available. For example, the media guidance applicationmay identify the content providers from which the movie is available.The media guidance application may determine whether the user subscribesto at least one content provider of the content providers from which themedia asset is available. For example, the media guidance applicationmay determine whether any of the content providers that the usersubscribes to offers the movie.

The media guidance application may, in response to determining that theuser subscribes to at least one content provider of the contentproviders from which the media asset is available, transmit aninstruction to generate for display, on the display device, a mediaasset identifier associated with the media asset without indicating theat least one content provider to the user. For example, the mediaguidance application may, in response to determining that the usersubscribes to a content provider that offers the movie, generate fordisplay a recommendation of the movie without indicating the contentprovider.

The media guidance application may, in response to determining that theuser does not subscribe to at least one content provider of the contentproviders from which the media asset is available, transmit aninstruction to generate for simultaneous display, on the display device,a media asset identifier associated with the media asset and a priceassociated with subscribing to one of the at least one content providerwithout indicating the content provider to the user. For example, themedia guidance application may, in response to determining that the userdoes not subscribe to a content provider that offers the movie, generatefor simultaneous display a recommendation of the movie and a priceassociated with subscribing to a content provider that offers the movie.

In some embodiments, the cloud-based aggregator includes a databaselisting a plurality of media asset identifiers associated with mediaassets available from the plurality of content providers, wherein eachmedia asset identifier is associated with content provider identifiers,each corresponding to a content provider from which the media assetassociated with the media asset identifier is available. For example,the cloud-based aggregator may include a database of all moviesavailable from all the content providers, associating each movie withthe content providers from which the movie is available.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may provide serviceproviders with a finder's fee for sharing information about media assetsthat a user is interested in viewing. Whereas service providers areusually in direct competition with one another and would find itdisadvantages to share information directly with one another, anaggregator coordinating the information among service providers makessharing information beneficial for all parties. First, the users havethe benefit of receiving recommendations of media assets that theydesire or are interested in. Second, the service provider transmittinguser information receives a benefit from the aggregator such as amonetary fee or recommendation credit without sending users to competingservice providers. Third, the service providers benefit fromrecommendations of their media assets because users are directed to usetheir services.

The media guidance application may receive information identifying amedia asset of interest to a user from a first service provider. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive information from afirst online streaming media provider identifying a movie that a user isinterested in watching. The media guidance application may determinethat the media asset is available from a second service provider. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine that the movie isavailable to watch from a second online streaming media provider. Themedia guidance application may inform the user that the media asset isavailable from the second service provider. For example, the mediaguidance application may generate for display a recommendation of themovie including information about its availability from the secondonline streaming media provider. The media guidance application mayreceive a user input to access the media asset from the second serviceprovider. For example, the user may click on the recommendation toaccess the movie from the second online streaming media provider.

The media guidance application may receive compensation from the secondservice provider for directing the user to use the second serviceprovider's service. For example, the media guidance application mayreceive a fee from the second online streaming media provider fordirecting the user to watch the movie. The media guidance applicationmay share the compensation with the first service provider. For example,the media guidance application may share the fee received from thesecond online streaming media provider with the first online streamingmedia provider.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may recommend mediacontent to users based on the users' media preferences. The mediaguidance application may receive, at a server, a request from a user,over a communications network, to access media assets from a firstcontent provider, wherein the first content provider is associated witha cloud-based aggregator of a plurality of content providers. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive a request from theuser to access a movie on a first online streaming media provider. Themedia guidance application may determine, at the server, a mediapreference for the user based on the request. For example, the mediaguidance application may determine the media preference to be the movie.

The media guidance application may retrieve, at the server, a list ofmedia assets available from each of the plurality of content providers.For example, the media guidance application may retrieve a list ofmovies available from all of the content providers associated with thecloud-based aggregator. The media guidance application may identify, atthe server, a media asset available from a second content provider basedon the media preference, wherein the second media provider is associatedwith the cloud-based aggregator. For example, the media guidanceapplication may identify the movie as being available from a secondonline streaming media provider that is associated with the cloud-basedaggregator. The media guidance application may transmit, over thecommunications network, a recommendation, on a display screen, for themedia asset without indicating the second content provider to the user.For example, the media guidance application may transmit arecommendation of the movie from the second online streaming mediaprovider, to be displayed for the user without indicating that thesource of the movie is the second online streaming media provider.

The media guidance application may receive, at the server, a firstrecommendation credit from the cloud-based aggregator in response totransmitting the recommendation. For example, the media guidanceapplication may receive a recommendation credit for the first onlinestreaming media provider for transmitting the recommendation of themovie.

In some embodiments, the media preference uniquely identifies a mediaasset that is of interest to the user. For example, the media preferencemay be the title of a movie, or any other identifier of the media asset.

In some embodiments, the media preference includes media assetattributes that the user is interested in. For example, the mediapreference may include a media asset type, genre, rating, length, castand crew, etc. that the user is interested in. For example, the mediapreference may be a list of media asset attributes such as movie,comedy, R-rated, and Tom Hanks.

In some embodiments, the media asset is not available from the firstcontent provider. For example, the movie that the user is interested inwatching may not be available from the first online streaming mediaprovider.

In some embodiments, the recommendation includes a link to the mediaasset from the second content provider. For example, the recommendationmay include a link that the user may click on to view the media assetfrom the second content provider.

In some embodiments, the first recommendation credit is a monetary fee.For example, the first recommendation credit may be a digital payment.For example, the first recommendation credit may be money that isexchanged digitally.

In some embodiments, the first recommendation credit is a digital creditadded to an account associated with the first content provider. Forexample, the media guidance application may add and subtractrecommendation credits from an account associated with the first contentprovider, keeping track of the total amount of recommendation creditsthat the first content provider possesses. The digital credits may beexchanged for money or other benefits. In some embodiments, the digitalcredits may be exchanged at the request of the content provider. In someembodiments, the digital credits may be exchanged at the end of apredetermined time period.

In some embodiments, the cloud-based aggregator receives a secondrecommendation credit from the second content provider. For example,after recommending a movie from the second online streaming mediaprovider to a user, the media guidance application may receive arecommendation credit from the second online streaming media provider.In some embodiments, the second recommendation credit is of greater thanor equal to the value of the first recommendation credit.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may generate fordisplay, on the display screen, a menu, associated with the cloud-basedaggregator, for receiving requests from the user to access media assetsfrom the first content provider, wherein the menu does not indicate thatthe media assets are from the first content provider. For example, themedia guidance application may generate for display, on the user'sdisplay, a menu of media assets available from the first onlinestreaming media provider, without indicating that the media assets areavailable from the first online streaming media provider.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may receive from thecloud-based aggregator a verification of a right of the first user toaccess media assets from the second content provider. For example, themedia guidance application may receive, from the cloud-based aggregator,verification that the user has the right to access media assets from asecond online streaming media provider. The media guidance applicationmay, in response to receiving from the cloud-based aggregator theverification of the right of the second user to access media assets fromthe first content provider, search for the media asset available fromthe second content provider based on the media preference. For example,after verifying that the user has the right to access media content fromthe second online streaming media provider, the media guidanceapplication may search the second online streaming media provider forthe media asset that the user is interested in.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative media listing display that may be used toprovide media listings from a plurality of content providers to users ina single interface in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 2 shows another illustrative display that may be used to provide amedia asset and recommendations of other media assets in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 3 shows another illustrative media listing display in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 shows another illustrative media listing display in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment device inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a flow-chart of illustrative steps for transmitting aninstruction to recommend a media asset without indicating the contentprovider to the user in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for determining whether theuser subscribes to a content provider from which the media asset isavailable and transmitting an instruction to recommend the media assetin accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 9 is an illustrative example of pseudocode for determining whetherthe user subscribes to a content provider from which the media asset isavailable and transmitting an instruction to recommend the media assetin accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIG. 10 is a flow-chart of illustrative steps for recommending mediacontent to users based on the users' media preferences in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Methods and systems are described herein for a media guidanceapplication that aggregates media content for users viewing over-the-topcontent. For example, the media guidance application may aggregatecontent from numerous providers and provide the content through a singleinterface. Moreover, the media guidance application described herein mayidentify a media asset available from at least one of a plurality ofcontent providers, and may recommend the media asset to the user withoutindicating the content provider from which the media asset is available.

For example, the media guidance application may recommend “Family GuyMovie,” a movie that is determined to be of interest to a user based ona user profile and is available from certain content providers. Themedia guidance application may identify content providers from which“Family Guy Movie” is available. The media guidance application may thendetermine whether the user subscribes to any of the content providers.If the media guidance application determines that the user subscribes toat least one of the content providers, then the media guidanceapplication may generate for display a media listing of the moviewithout indicating any of the content providers from which it isavailable. If the media guidance application determines that the userdoes not subscribe to any of the content providers, then the mediaguidance application may generate for simultaneous display a medialisting of the movie and a price associated with subscribing to acontent provider from which the movie is available, without indicatingthe content provider to the user. In another example, a user may searchfor a certain media asset directly (e.g., using search box 108 (FIG.1)).

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content.

As referred to herein, the terms “media asset” and “content” should beunderstood to mean an electronically consumable user asset, such astelevision programming, as well as pay-per-view programs, on-demandprograms (as in video-on-demand (VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g.,streaming content, downloadable content, Webcasts, etc.), video clips,audio, content information, pictures, rotating images, documents,playlists, websites, articles, books, electronic books, blogs,advertisements, chat sessions, social media, applications, games, and/orany other media or multimedia and/or combination of the same. Guidanceapplications also allow users to navigate among and locate content. Asreferred to herein, the term “multimedia” should be understood to meancontent that utilizes at least two different content forms describedabove, for example, text, audio, images, video, or interactivity contentforms. Content may be recorded, played, displayed or accessed by userequipment devices, but can also be part of a live performance.

One type of content is over-the-top content. As referred to herein,“over-the-top content” or “OTT content” is media content delivered overa network using Internet technology (e.g., via the Internet or a managednetwork). In some embodiments, OTT content may be delivered without theinvolvement of a multiple-system operator in the control or distributionof the content. For example, OTT content may include a media asset(e.g., a movie) that is streamed to a user over the Internet.

In some embodiments, the OTT content may be provided through a platformthat aggregates content from numerous providers. A platform thatprovides such a feature may be referred to as a super aggregator or acontent aggregator or, sometimes, cloud-based aggregator. For example,the super aggregator may provide a single interface through which a usermay access, search, and/or otherwise receive information about mediacontent from numerous media content providers and media guidance datafrom a media guidance data source. Such an interface is referred toherein as a media guidance application.

As referred to herein, “content providers,” or “service providers,” arethird-party entities that provide media content. For example, contentproviders may be third-party entities that provide movies, music, andother media content to users. A content provider may be unaffiliatedwith the cloud-based aggregator. A content provider may be in acontractual relationship with the cloud-based aggregator. For example,the content provider may be in an agreement to provide the cloud-basedaggregator with information about users in return for some compensation.A content provider may be in a contractual relationship with the userand not the cloud-based aggregator. For example, the content providermay be subscribed to by users and may not have any agreement with thecloud-based aggregator.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), advertisement information (e.g., text, images, media clips,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

FIGS. 1-2 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 1-2 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 1-2 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by content type, bycategory (e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative media listing display that may be used toprovide media listings from a plurality of content providers to users ina single interface. Display 100 includes rows 112, 114, 116, and 118each of which includes cells of selectable media listings, such as movie120. The selectable media listings may include titles or other textbelow the images. The selectable media listings may be provided by aplurality of content providers. The content providers for the variousselectable media listings may not be shown.

Display 150 includes header 102 with: (1) logo 104, which may beassociated with the super aggregator; (2) selectable options 106 forselecting content by type, genre, and/or other organization criteria;(3) search box 108 for searching content by text; and (4) user settings110 for accessing and editing user information and preferences. Rows112, 114, 116, and 118 include cells of selectable media listings, suchas movie 120, where each selectable media listing provides graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. With a user input device, a user can select medialistings by moving a highlighted region to the media listing or byclicking on the media listing. Selecting a media listing from display100 may cause the display to change to include information related tothe selected media listing (e.g., display 250 (FIG. 2)).

The media guidance application provides access to non-linear programming(e.g., content accessible to a user equipment device at any time and isnot provided according to a schedule). Non-linear programming mayinclude content from different content sources including on-demandcontent (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g., streaming media,downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content (e.g., content storedon any user equipment device described above or other storage device),or other time-independent content. On-demand content may include moviesor any other content provided by a particular content provider (e.g.,HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm”). HBOON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time Warner Company L.P. et al. andTHE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM are trademarks owned by the HomeBox Office, Inc. Internet content may include web events, such as a chatsession or Webcast, or content available on-demand as streaming contentor downloadable content through an Internet website or other Internetaccess (e.g., FTP).

Another display arrangement for providing media listings from aplurality of content providers to users in a single interface is shownin FIG. 2. Display 200 includes recommendations region 216. For example,the recommendations region 216 may be populated with recommendations formedia assets. The media guidance application may determine which mediaassets to recommend based on a user profile for the user. Furthermore,the content provider that provides the media assets may not be shown.

Display 250 may include header 202 with: (1) logo 204, which may beassociated with the super aggregator; (2) selectable options 206 forselecting content by type, genre, and/or other organization criteria;(3) search box 208 for searching content by text; and (4) user settings210 for accessing and editing user information and preferences. Display250 also includes media region 212, information region 214, andrecommendations region 216. Media region 212 may include a media assetand may be selectable to view content in full-screen. Information region214 may include information associated with the media asset, forexample, the title, description, duration, rating, and other desiredinformation. Recommendations region 216 may provide media listings withgraphical images 218 a, 218 b, and 218 c, including cover art, stillimages from the content, video clip previews, live video from thecontent, or other types of content that indicate to a user the contentbeing described by the media guidance data in the listing. Each of themedia listings may also be accompanied by text 220 a, 220 b, and 220 cto provide further information about the content associated with thelisting. Price indicator 222 a provides the price associated with asubscription to a content provider from which the content described inthe listing is available. In some embodiments, price indicator 222 a maybe placed over graphical image 218 a. In some embodiments, priceindicator 222 a may be placed near graphical image 218 a in the medialisting.

The media listings in display 250 are of the same size, but if desired,the listings may be of different sizes. Listings may be of differentsizes or graphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to theuser or to emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provideror based on user preferences. Various systems and methods forgraphically accentuating content listings are discussed in, for example,Yates, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov.12, 2009, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

FIGS. 3-4 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 3-4 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 3-4 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 3 shows an illustrative grid of a program listings display 300arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 300 may include grid 302 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 304, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 306, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 302 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 308, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 310. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 310 may be provided inprogram information region 312. Region 312 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 302 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 314, recorded content listing 316, andInternet content listing 318. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 300 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings314, 316, and 318 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 302 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 302. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 320. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 320.)

Display 300 may also include video region 322, advertisement 324, andoptions region 326. Video region 322 may allow the user to view and/orpreview programs that are currently available, will be available, orwere available to the user. The content of video region 322 maycorrespond to, or be independent from, one of the listings displayed ingrid 302. Grid displays including a video region are sometimes referredto as picture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and theirfunctionalities are described in greater detail in Satterfield et al.U.S. Pat. No. 6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat.No. 6,239,794, issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated byreference herein in their entireties. PIG displays may be included inother media guidance application display screens of the embodimentsdescribed herein.

Advertisement 324 may provide an advertisement for content that,depending on a viewer's access rights (e.g., for subscriptionprogramming), is currently available for viewing, will be available forviewing in the future, or may never become available for viewing, andmay correspond to or be unrelated to one or more of the content listingsin grid 302. Advertisement 324 may also be for products or servicesrelated or unrelated to the content displayed in grid 302. Advertisement324 may be selectable and provide further information about content,provide information about a product or a service, enable purchasing ofcontent, a product, or a service, provide content relating to theadvertisement, etc. Advertisement 324 may be targeted based on a user'sprofile/preferences, monitored user activity, the type of displayprovided, or on other suitable targeted advertisement bases.

While advertisement 324 is shown as rectangular or banner shaped,advertisements may be provided in any suitable size, shape, and locationin a guidance application display. For example, advertisement 324 may beprovided as a rectangular shape that is horizontally adjacent to grid302. This is sometimes referred to as a panel advertisement. Inaddition, advertisements may be overlaid over content or a guidanceapplication display or embedded within a display. Advertisements mayalso include text, images, rotating images, video clips, or other typesof content described above. Advertisements may be stored in a userequipment device having a guidance application, in a database connectedto the user equipment, in a remote location (including streaming mediaservers), or on other storage means, or a combination of theselocations. Providing advertisements in a media guidance application isdiscussed in greater detail in, for example, Knudson et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2003/0110499, filed Jan. 17, 2003; Ward, IIIet al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,756,997, issued Jun. 29, 2004; and Schein et al.U.S. Pat. No. 6,388,714, issued May 14, 2002, which are herebyincorporated by reference herein in their entireties. It will beappreciated that advertisements may be included in other media guidanceapplication display screens of the embodiments described herein.

Options region 326 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 326 may be part of display 300 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 326 may concern features related to program listings in grid 302or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.),and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 6. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 4. Video mosaic display 400 includes selectable options 402 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 400, television listings option 404 isselected, thus providing listings 406, 408, 410, and 412 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 400 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 408 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 414 and text portion 416.Media portion 414 and/or text portion 416 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 414 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 400 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 406 islarger than listings 408, 410, and 412), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 5 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 500. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 6.User equipment device 500 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 502. I/O path 502 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 504, which includesprocessing circuitry 506 and storage 508. Control circuitry 504 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 502. I/O path 502 may connect control circuitry 504 (andspecifically processing circuitry 506) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 5 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 504 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 506. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 504 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 508). Specifically, control circuitry 504 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 504 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 504 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 504 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 6). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 508 thatis part of control circuitry 504. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 508 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 6, may be used to supplementstorage 508 or instead of storage 508.

Control circuitry 504 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 504 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 500. Circuitry 504 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 508 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 500, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 508.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 504 using user inputinterface 510. User input interface 510 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 512 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 500. For example, display 512 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 510may be integrated with or combined with display 512. Display 512 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 512 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 512 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 512.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry504. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 504.Speakers 514 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 500 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 512 may be played throughspeakers 514. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers514.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 500. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage508), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 504 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 508 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 504 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 510. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 510 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 500 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 500. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 504 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 504) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 500. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 500.Equipment device 500 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 510 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 500 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 510.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 500 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 504). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 504 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 504. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 504. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 500 of FIG. 5 can be implemented in system 600 ofFIG. 6 as user television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604,wireless user communications device 606, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 5 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604, or awireless user communications device 606. For example, user televisionequipment 602 may, like some user computer equipment 604, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 604 may, like some television equipment 602, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 604, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 606.

In system 600, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 6 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 602, user computer equipment 604, wireless user communicationsdevice 606) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 614.Namely, user television equipment 602, user computer equipment 604, andwireless user communications device 606 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 614 via communications paths 608, 610, and 612, respectively.Communications network 614 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a6G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 608, 610, and 612 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 612 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 6 it is awireless path and paths 608 and 610 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 6 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 608, 610, and 612, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1596 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 614.

System 600 includes a super aggregator 624 coupled to communicationsnetwork 614 via communication path 626. Path 626 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 608, 610,and 612. Communications with the super aggregator 624 may be exchangedover one or more communications paths, but are shown as a single path inFIG. 6 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. Although communicationsbetween super aggregator 624 with user equipment devices 602, 604, and606 are shown as through communications network 614, in someembodiments, super aggregator 624 may communicate directly with userequipment devices 602, 604, and 606 via communication paths (not shown)such as those described above in connection with paths 608, 610, and612.

System 600 includes content sources 616 and media guidance data source618 coupled to communications network 614 via communication paths 620and 622, respectively. Paths 620 and 622 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 608, 610,and 612. Communications with the content source 616 and media guidancedata source 618 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 6 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than two of content source 616,but only two are shown in FIG. 6 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.In addition, there may be more than one of media guidance data source618, but only one is shown in FIG. 6 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. (The different types of each of these sources are discussedbelow.) If desired, a content source 616 and a media guidance datasource 618 may be integrated as one source device. Althoughcommunications between sources 616 and 618 with super aggregator 624 areshown as through communications network 614, in some embodiments,sources 616 and 618 may communicate directly with super aggregator 624via communication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 608, 610, and 612.

Content source 616 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 616 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 616 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 616 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 618 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 618may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 618 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 618 mayprovide user equipment devices 602, 604, and 606 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions and advertisements thatentice the user to keep the particular service or source indicated bythe score as one to which the user will likely terminate access.

In some embodiments, media guidance data from media guidance datasources 618 and media content from media content sources 616 may beprovided to users' equipment by the super aggregator 624. For example, auser equipment device may pull media guidance data and other contentfrom the super aggregator 624 or the super aggregator 624 may push mediaguidance data and other content to a user equipment device. In addition,the super aggregator 624 may pull media guidance data from mediaguidance data sources 618 and media content from media content sources616, or media guidance data sources and media content sources may pushmedia guidance data sources and media content, respectively, to thesuper aggregator 624.

In some embodiments, the super aggregator 624 may filter media contentreceived from content providers before providing the media content tothe users' equipment. Similarly, the super aggregator 624 may filtermedia guidance data received from media guidance data sources beforeproviding the media content to the users' equipment. For example, thesuper aggregator may remove any indication of the content provider frommedia content and media guidance data before providing them to users.

In some embodiments, the super aggregator 624 may provide media contentand media guidance data from media content sources and media guidancedata sources, respectively, by email or phone to users. For example, thesuper aggregator may provide a media asset's availability and price byemail to users.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 508, and executedby control circuitry 504 of a user equipment device 500. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 504 of user equipment device 500and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 618) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 618), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 618 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices602, 604, and 606 may be over-the-top content. OTT content deliveryallows Internet-enabled user devices, including any user equipmentdevice described above, to receive content that is transferred over theInternet, including any content described above, in addition to contentreceived over cable or satellite connections. OTT content is deliveredvia an Internet connection provided by an Internet service provider(ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP may not beresponsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, or redistribution ofthe content, and may only transfer IP packets provided by the OTTcontent provider. Examples of OTT content providers include YOUTUBE,NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IP packets. YouTubeis a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is a trademark owned byNetflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu, LLC. OTT contentproviders may additionally or alternatively provide media guidance datadescribed above. In addition to content and/or media guidance data,providers of OTT content can distribute media guidance applications(e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications), or thecontent can be displayed by media guidance applications stored on theuser equipment device.

Media guidance system 600 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 6.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 614.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,066,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 616 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 602 and user computer equipment 604may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 606 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, e.g., in an approach with a super aggregator 624,user equipment devices may operate in a cloud computing environment toaccess cloud services. In a cloud computing environment, various typesof computing services for content sharing, storage or distribution(e.g., video sharing sites or social networking sites) are provided by acollection of network-accessible computing and storage resources,referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloud can include acollection of server computing devices, which may be located centrallyor at distributed locations, that provide cloud-based services tovarious types of users and devices connected via a network such as theInternet via communications network 614. These cloud resources mayinclude a super aggregator 624, also referred to herein as “cloud-basedaggregator,” which may provide users with media content from mediacontent sources 616 and media guidance data from media guidance datasources 618. These cloud resources may include one or more contentsources 616 and one or more media guidance data sources 618. In additionor in the alternative, the remote computing sites may include other userequipment devices, such as user television equipment 602, user computerequipment 604, and wireless user communications device 606. For example,the other user equipment devices may provide access to a stored copy ofa video or a streamed video. In such embodiments, user equipment devicesmay operate in a peer-to-peer manner without communicating with acentral server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 604 or wireless usercommunications device 606 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 604. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 614. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 5.

As referred to herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated asa result of. For example, a first action being performed in response toanother action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred to herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to another action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

As referred to herein, the term “generating for display” means causing,directly or indirectly, the display of media content on a device whetheror not the device upon which the media content is displayed is thedevice that causes the media content to be generated for display. Forexample, a set-top box may generate for display a media asset by usingcontrol circuitry (e.g., graphics processing unit) to generate a signalto be sent to a display device (e.g., TV) to display the media asset. Inthis example, the set-top box generates the signal used by the displaydevice to display the media asset, therefore the set-top box generatesfor display the media asset.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for determining whether auser subscribes to a content provider from which the media asset isavailable and transmitting an instruction to recommend the media assetto the user based on a user profile without indicating the contentprovider from which the media asset is available. It should be notedthat process 700, or any step thereof, could occur on, or be providedby, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 5-6. For example, process 700 maybe executed by control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5) as instructed by the mediaguidance application (e.g., implemented on any of the devices shown anddescribed in FIG. 6).

In step 702, the media guidance application receives, at a server, arequest from a user, over a communications network, to access mediaassets from a cloud-based aggregator, wherein the media assets areavailable from a plurality of content providers. For example, the mediaguidance application may receive a request from a user to access movies.In some embodiments, the request is to access media assets in general.For example, such a request may be received when a user initiallyaccesses the media guidance application to view display 100 (FIG. 1). Insome embodiments, the request includes criteria associated with mediaassets. For example, such a request may be received when a user selects“Movies” from selectable options 106 (FIG. 1). In some embodiments, therequest includes information associated with a specific media asset. Forexample, such a request may be received when a user searches for a movieby its title in the search box 108 (FIG. 1).

In step 704, the media guidance application retrieves, at the server(e.g., super aggregator 624 (FIG. 6)), a user profile corresponding tothe user. For example, the media guidance application may retrieve theuser's profile including data about the user's preferences andinterests.

In step 706, the media guidance application identifies, at the server(e.g., super aggregator 624 (FIG. 6)), a media asset based on the userprofile from a content provider (e.g., media content source 616, mediaguidance data source 618 (FIG. 6)) of the plurality of contentproviders. For example, the media guidance application may identify amovie available from at least one of the plurality of content providersthat is of interest to the user by using the data in the user's profile.

In step 708, the media guidance application transmits, over thecommunications network (e.g., communications network 614 (FIG. 6)), aninstruction to recommend, on a display screen (e.g., display 512 (FIG.5)), the media asset without indicating the content provider to theuser. For example, the media guidance application may transmit aninstruction to display a recommendation of the movie to the user,without indicating the content provider from which the movie isavailable.

In some embodiments, the communications network may utilize an Internetprotocol suite. For example, the communication may utilize theTransmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP).

In some embodiments, the media assets include a first media assetavailable from a first content provider of the plurality of contentproviders and a second media asset available from a second contentprovider of the plurality of content providers. For example, the mediaassets may include a movie from a first content provider and a song froma different content provider.

In some embodiments, the user profile is an aggregated user profile fromthe first content provider and the second content provider. For example,the user profile may be a combination of the user's profiles with eachcontent provider. For example, the user profile may include the user'smovie preferences in the user profile from a content provider thatprovides movies, and the user's music preferences in the user profilefrom a content provider that provides music.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identify themedia asset based on the user profile by retrieving a plurality of mediaassets available from the plurality of content providers. For example,the media guidance application may retrieve a list of all the moviesavailable from the plurality of content providers. The media guidanceapplication may determine whether metadata associated with each of theplurality of media assets matches data in the user profile. For example,the media guidance application may compare the genre, rating, anddescription of each movie with data in the user profile indicating whatgenres, ratings, and keywords the user has an interest in. The mediaguidance application may select the media asset based on determiningthat the media asset has metadata that matches the data in the userprofile. For example, the media guidance application may select themovie that is of greatest interest to the user.

In some embodiments, the instruction to recommend the media assetwithout indicating the content provider to the user further comprises aninstruction to generate for simultaneous display, on the display device,a media asset identifier associated with the media asset and a logoassociated with the cloud-based aggregator. For example, the mediaguidance application may generate for display a link to the movie andthe logo of the cloud-based aggregator without generating for display anindication of the content provider from which the movie is available.

In some embodiments, the cloud-based aggregator may require asubscription. For example, the cloud-based aggregator may require usersto pay a monthly fee to use the aggregator.

In some embodiments, the cloud-based aggregator may manage a user'ssubscriptions to content providers. For example, the cloud-basedaggregator may store a user's subscription information for each contentprovider. The cloud-based aggregator may receive a user inputidentifying a content provider, a username associated with the user'ssubscription to the content provider, and a password associated with theuser's subscription to the content provider. For example, the user mayprovide the cloud-based aggregator with a username and password to oneof the content providers.

The cloud-based aggregator may verify the username and the passwordcombination with the content aggregator. For example, the cloud-basedaggregator may log in to the content provider's website or applicationusing the username and password provided by the user to verify theusername and password.

The cloud-based aggregator may retrieve the type of subscription theuser has with the content provider from the content provider. Forexample, after logging in to the content provider's website orapplication, the cloud-based aggregator may retrieve the type ofsubscription the user has with the content provider (e.g., freesubscription, premium subscription) and the packages the user subscribesto (e.g., sports packages, movie packages).

The cloud-based aggregator may store the username, the password, and thetype of subscription the user has with the content provider. Forexample, the cloud-based aggregator may store the username, password,and type of subscription in the user profile.

In some embodiments, the cloud-based aggregator may require userauthentication. For example, users may have to login to the cloud-basedaggregator using a username and password. The cloud-based aggregatormay, after authenticating the user, automatically authenticate the userwith all content providers that the user subscribes to using the storedsubscription information associated with the user. For example, thecloud-based aggregator may login the user to all the content providersthat the user has provided a valid username and password combinationfor.

In some embodiments, the user profile may include the user'ssubscription information for each content provider of the plurality ofcontent providers. For example, the user profile associated with a usermay include the information about the user's subscriptions to thedifferent content providers. For example, the user profile may includethe type of subscription the user has with the content provider andauthentication information (e.g., username, password).

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may monitor theuser's activity on the cloud-based aggregator. For example, the mediaguidance application may monitor the media assets that a user views aswell as the amount of time the user views each media asset. The mediaguidance application may update the user profile based on the user'sactivity. For example, the media guidance application may update theuser profile to include movies the user has viewed and the amount oftime the user viewed each movie. The media guidance application maytransmit data in the user profile to a content provider of the pluralityof content providers. For example, the media guidance application maytransmit the list of movies that a user has viewed to one of the contentproviders.

In some embodiment, the media guidance application may receive theuser's activity on a content provider's website or application from thecontent provider. For example, the media guidance application mayreceive (e.g., via communications network 614 (FIG. 6)) information thata user is watching a movie from a content provider. The media guidanceapplication may store the user's activity in the user profile. Forexample, the media guidance application may add information that a useris watching the movie to the user profile.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may transmit aninstruction to recommend the media asset without indicating the contentprovider to the user by identifying content providers from which themedia asset is available. For example, the media guidance applicationmay identify the content providers from which the movie is available.The media guidance application may determine whether the user subscribesto at least one content provider of the content providers from which themedia asset is available. For example, the media guidance applicationmay determine whether any of the content providers that the usersubscribes to offer the movie.

The media guidance application may, in response to determining that theuser subscribes to at least one content provider of the contentproviders from which the media asset is available, transmit aninstruction to generate for display, on the display device, a mediaasset identifier associated with the media asset without indicating theat least one content provider to the user. For example, the mediaguidance application may, in response to determining that the usersubscribes to a content provider that offers the movie, generate fordisplay a recommendation of the movie without indicating the contentprovider.

The media guidance application may, in response to determining that theuser does not subscribe to at least one content provider of the contentproviders from which the media asset is available, transmit aninstruction to generate for simultaneous display, on the display device,a media asset identifier associated with the media asset and a priceassociated with subscribing to one of the at least one content providerwithout indicating the content provider to the user. For example, themedia guidance application may, in response to determining that the userdoes not subscribe to a content provider that offers the movie, generatefor simultaneous display a recommendation of the movie and a priceassociated with subscribing to a content provider that offers the movie.

In some embodiments, the cloud-based aggregator may include a databaselisting a plurality of media asset identifiers associated with mediaassets available from the plurality of content providers, wherein eachmedia asset identifier is associated with content providers from whichthe media asset associated with the media asset identifier is available.For example, the cloud-based aggregator may include a database of allmovies available from all the content providers, associating each moviewith the content providers from which the movie is available.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may receive anadvertisement from an advertiser to be distributed to users. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive a car commercialfrom an advertiser to be delivered to a target audience. Theadvertisement may include information about a target audience. Forexample, the advertisement may include information about who it istargeting. For example, a car commercial may target users who are olderthan sixteen, have a driver's license, and like cars.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may provide anadvertisement to a user based on a user profile. For example, the mediaguidance application may direct a car commercial to a user whose profileindicates an interest in cars. The media guidance application maycompare the information about the target audience with the informationin a user profile associated with a user to determine whether the useris in the target audience. For example, the media guidance applicationmay compare a user's age according to the user's profile to the targetage range in the information in the advertisement. This provides thebenefit of delivering advertisements that are relevant or of interest tousers.

In some embodiments, the user profile may include the user's viewing andpurchasing history. For example, the user profile may include a list ofthe movies the user has viewed and a list of products or services theuser has purchased. In some embodiments, the user profile may include auser identifier, generated to replace the user's name in the userprofile. For example, the user profile may include a unique number usedto identify the user instead of using the user's name. This provides thebenefit of maintaining users' privacies.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application provides theadvertisement directly to the user. For example, the media guidanceapplication may generate for display a car commercial when the user isviewing content provided by the media guidance application. In someembodiments, the media guidance application delivers the advertisementsindirectly to the user through a content provider. For example, themedia guidance application may transmit the car commercial to a contentprovider that the user is using and the content provider may thengenerate for display the car commercial to the user. This provides thebenefit of continuously delivering targeted advertisements to user, evenwhen using different websites and applications to view media content.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may receiveinformation from a content provider about a user's activities on awebsite or in an application associated with the content provider. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive (e.g., viacommunications network 614 (FIG. 6)) information from a content providerthat a user is watching a movie about street racing. The media guidanceapplication may update a user profile associated with the user toinclude the information received from the content provider. For example,the media guidance application may update the user's profile to includethe fact that the user is viewing the movie about street racing. Themedia guidance application may identify an advertisement based on theuser profile. For example, the media guidance application may identify acar commercial as being of interest to the user based on the user'sprofile. The media guidance application may transmit the advertisementto the content provider to be delivered to the user. For example, themedia guidance application may transmit the car commercial to thecontent provider for the content provider to display it to the user.

The media guidance application may share the revenue associated withdelivering the advertisement to the user with the content provider. Thisprovides the benefit of incentivizing content providers to share auser's activities with the media guidance application and helpdistribute advertisements to the user. With the media guidanceapplication being at the center of the information sharing, the mediaguidance application will have the most information on the user and willbe able to determine the most relevant advertisements to deliver to theuser.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application transmits a reportto a content provider including advertisement distribution information.For example, the media guidance application may send a content providera report of all of the advertisements delivered to users and how muchrevenue that created. The distribution information may include:advertisement identifiers; numbers of times each advertisementassociated with an advertisement identifier was viewed; and revenueshared with the content provider for delivering the advertisements.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application monitors thedistribution of advertisements to users. For example, the media guidanceapplication may keep track of the advertisements that are delivered tothe users, both directly and indirectly.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinerevenue generated from advertisers. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine the amount received from advertisers to havethe advertisements distributed to users. In some embodiments, the mediaguidance application may share the revenue generated from advertisementswith content providers. For example, after delivering a car commercialto a content provider to be displayed to a user, the media guidanceapplication may share part of the revenue received from the advertiserwith the content provider. This provides the benefit of incentivizingcontent providers to help deliver advertisements to users.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application monitors a user'sinteraction with an advertisement. For example, the media guidanceapplication may keep track of whether a user saw the advertisement,whether the user clicked the advertisement, whether the user bought theproduct or service associated with the advertisement. The media guidanceapplication may store the user's interaction with the advertisements ina user profile associated with the user. For example, the media guidanceapplication may store the fact that a user viewed and clicked on a carcommercial advertisement in the user's profile. In some embodiments, theuser's interaction with the advertisements may include an advertisementidentifier associated with the advertisement, an indication of whetherthe user viewed the advertisement, an indication of whether the userclicked the advertisement, and an indication of whether the userpurchased the product or service associated with the advertisement.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may provide serviceproviders with a finder's fee for sharing information about media assetsthat a user is interested in viewing. The media guidance application mayreceive information identifying a media asset of interest to a user froma first service provider. For example, the media guidance applicationmay receive information from a first music service provider identifyingan album that a user is interested in listening to. The media guidanceapplication may determine that the media asset is available from asecond service provider. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine that the album is available to listen to from a second musicprovider. The media guidance application may inform the user that themedia asset is available from the second service provider. For example,the media guidance application may generate for display a recommendationof the album including information about its availability from thesecond music service provider. The media guidance application mayreceive a user input to access the media asset from the second serviceprovider. For example, the user may click on the recommendation toaccess the album from the second music service provider.

The media guidance application may receive compensation from the secondservice provider for directing the user to use the second serviceprovider's service. For example, the media guidance application mayreceive a monetary fee from the second music service provider fordirecting the user to listen to the album. The media guidanceapplication may share the compensation with the first service provider.For example, the media guidance application may share the monetary feereceived from the second music service provider with the first musicservice provider. Sharing the finder's fee with the first serviceprovider incentivize the service provider to share users' interests inmedia assets. The second service provider receives the benefit of usersusing the service. Finally, the users have the benefit of viewing themedia assets that they desire.

FIGS. 8 and 9 present processes for control circuitry (e.g., controlcircuitry 504) to determine whether the user subscribes to a contentprovider from which the media asset is available and to transmit aninstruction to recommend the media asset without indicating the contentprovider to the user in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure. In some embodiments this algorithm may be encoded on tonon-transitory storage medium (e.g., storage device 508) as a set ofinstructions to be decoded and executed by processing circuitry (e.g.,processing circuitry 506). Processing circuitry may in turn provideinstructions to other sub-circuits contained within control circuitry504, such as the tuning, video generating, encoding, decoding,encrypting, decrypting, scaling, analog/digital conversion circuitry,and the like.

The flowchart in FIG. 8 describes a process implemented on controlcircuitry (e.g., control circuitry 504) to transmit an instruction torecommend the media asset without indicating the content provider to theuser in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.

At step 802, control circuitry 504 to determine whether the usersubscribes to a content provider from which the media asset is availableand to transmit an instruction to recommend the media asset withoutindicating the content provider to the user will begin after identifyinga media asset. In some embodiments, this may be done either directly orindirectly in response to a user action or input (e.g., from signalsreceived by control circuitry 504 or user input interface 510). Forexample, the process may begin directly in response to control circuitry504 receiving signals from user input interface 510, or controlcircuitry 504 may prompt the user to confirm their input using a display(e.g., by generating a prompt to be displayed on display 512) prior torunning the algorithm.

At step 804, control circuitry 504 retrieves content provideridentifiers, each associated with a content provider from which themedia asset is available. In some embodiments, the content provideridentifiers may be stored as part of a larger data structure, andcontrol circuitry 504 may retrieve the value of a content provider byexecuting appropriate accessor methods to retrieve the value from thelarger data structure.

At step 806, control circuitry 504 proceeds to retrieve the next contentprovider identifier from stored memory. In some embodiments controlcircuitry 504 may receive a single primitive data structure thatrepresents the value of the content provider identifier. In someembodiments the value may be stored as part of a larger data structure,and control circuitry 504 may retrieve the value by executingappropriate accessor methods to retrieve the value from the larger datastructure.

At step 808, control circuitry 504 proceeds to retrieve the user'ssubscription to the content provider associated with the contentprovider identifier from the user profile. In some embodiments, thevalue of each of the user's subscriptions may be stored (e.g., onstorage device 508) prior to beginning the process. In some embodimentsthe value of each of the user's subscription may also be retrieved foreach and every instance of the content provider identifier.

At step 810, control circuitry 504 compares the values of having asubscription and the user's subscription to determine if the usersubscribed to the content provider associated with the content provideridentifier. In some embodiments, control circuitry 504 may directlycompare the value of the user's subscription with a value associatedwith having a subscription (e.g., the boolean True) by accessing thevalue and performing a value comparison. In some instances, controlcircuitry 504 may call a comparison function (e.g., for object to objectcomparison) to compare the user's subscription and the value of having asubscription. If the condition is satisfied, the algorithm may proceedto step 812; if the condition is not satisfied, the algorithm mayproceed to step 814 instead.

At step 812, control circuitry 504 executes a subroutine to transmit aninstruction to generate for display, on the display device, a mediaasset identifier associated with the media asset without indicating theat least one content provider to the user based on the condition at step810 being satisfied.

At step 814, control circuitry 504 checks if all instances of contentprovider identifiers are accounted for. If all of the instances havebeen evaluated, control circuitry 504 may proceed to step 816. Forexample, control circuitry 504 may call a function to see if there is anext content provider identifier. If the function returns true (i.e.,there are still instances that need to be processed), control circuitry504 may proceed to step 806. Otherwise, control circuitry 504 mayproceed to step 820.

At step 820, control circuitry 504 executes a subroutine to transmit aninstruction to generate for simultaneous display, on the display device,a media asset identifier associated with the media asset and a priceassociated with subscribing to one of the at least one content providerwithout indicating the content provider to the user.

It is contemplated that the descriptions of FIG. 8 may be used with anyother embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the descriptionsdescribed in relation to the algorithm of FIG. 8 may be done inalternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes of thisdisclosure. For example, conditional statements and logical evaluations,such as those at 808 and 812, may be performed in any order or inparallel or simultaneously to reduce lag or increase the speed of thesystem or method. As a further example, in some embodiments severalinstances of content provider identifier may be evaluated in parallel,using multiple logical processor threads, or the algorithm may beenhanced by incorporating branch prediction. Furthermore, it should benoted that the process of FIG. 8 may be implemented on a combination ofappropriately configured software and hardware, and that any of thedevices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 5-4 could be used toimplement one or more portions of the process.

The pseudocode in FIG. 9 describes a process to determine whether theuser subscribes to a content provider from which the media asset isavailable and to transmit an instruction to recommend the media assetwithout indicating the content provider to the user in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure. It will be evident to one skilled inthe art that the process described by the pseudocode in FIG. 9 may beimplemented in any number of programming languages and a variety ofdifferent hardware, and that the style and format should not beconstrued as limiting, but rather a general template of the steps andprocedures that would be consistent with code used to implement someembodiments of this disclosure.

At line 901, control circuitry 504 runs a subroutine to initializevariables and prepare to determine whether the user subscribes to acontent provider from which the media asset is available and to transmitan instruction to recommend the media asset without indicating thecontent provider to the user, which begins on line 908. For example, insome embodiments control circuitry 504 may copy instructions fromnon-transitory storage medium (e.g., storage device 508) into RAM orinto the cache for processing circuitry 506 during the initializationstage. Additionally, in some embodiments the value of each of the user'ssubscriptions being used for comparison may be retrieved, set, andstored at 901.

Line 903 includes a comment describing the purpose of the subroutine. Insome embodiments, control circuitry 504 ignores the comment. In someembodiments, the comment is at the top of the code or on any other linein the code. In some embodiments, the comment is more specific bydescribing the purpose of specific variables and lines in the code. Insome embodiments, the comment is missing entirely.

At line 905, control circuitry 504 retrieves content provideridentifiers, each associated with a content provider from which themedia asset is available. In some embodiments these instances may beretrieved from stored memory (e.g., storage 508). In some embodimentsthese instances may be retrieved from a server (e.g., via communicationsnetwork 614). Control circuitry 504 may receive content provideridentifiers by receiving, for example, a pointer to an array of valuesof content provider identifiers. In another example, control circuitry504 may receive an object of a class, such as an iterator objectcontaining content provider identifiers.

At line 906, control circuitry 504 iterates through the various contentprovider identifiers, if only a single instance is available, the loopwill only execute once. This loop may be implemented in multiplefashions depending on the choice of hardware and software language usedto implement the algorithm of FIG. 9; for example, this may beimplemented as part of a “for” or “while” loop.

At line 907, control circuitry 504 retrieves the user's subscription tothe content provider associated with the content provider identifierfrom the user profile. Similar to the content provider identifiers, insome embodiments the value of the user's subscription will be stored aspart of a larger data structure or class, and the value of the user'ssubscription may be obtained through accessor methods. In someembodiments the user's subscription may be converted from a string orother non-numeric data type into a numeric data type by means of anappropriate hashing algorithm, or the user's subscription may be aprimitive data structure, and may be directly used in the comparisons atline 909.

At line 909, control circuitry 504 compares the value of the user'ssubscription to the value of having a subscription to see if the usersubscribes to the content provider associated with the content provideridentifier.

At line 910, control circuitry 504 executes a subroutine to transmit aninstruction to generate for display, on the display device, a mediaasset identifier associated with the media asset without indicating theat least one content provider to the user using communications network614, if the condition in line 909 is satisfied. In some embodiments thismay be achieved by processing circuitry 506 sending the appropriatesignals to communications circuitry.

At line 912, control circuitry 504 determines whether the user does notsubscribe to any of the content providers associated with the contentprovider identifiers processed. In some embodiments, control circuitrymay initialize a variable indicating whether the user subscribes to atleast one of the content providers to FALSE in the initializationsubroutine in line 901. Control circuitry 504 may then update the valueto TRUE if the condition in line 909 is satisfied. Control circuitry 504may then compare the value of the variable to the value FALSE at line912 to determine whether the user does not subscribe to any of thecontent providers.

At line 913, control circuitry 504 executes subroutine to transmit aninstruction to generate for simultaneous display, on the display device,a media asset identifier associated with the media asset and a priceassociated with subscribing to the content provider without indicatingthe content provider to the user using communications circuitry if thecondition at line 912 is satisfied.

At line 915, control circuitry 504 runs a termination subroutine afterthe algorithm has performed its function. For example, in someembodiments control circuitry 504 may destruct variables, performgarbage collection, free memory or clear the cache of processingcircuitry 506.

It will be evident to one skilled in the art that process 900 describedby the pseudocode in FIG. 9 may be implemented in any number ofprogramming languages and a variety of different hardware, and theparticular choice and location of primitive functions, logicalevaluations, and function evaluations are not intended to be limiting.It will also be evident that the code may be refactored or rewritten tomanipulate the order of the various logical evaluations, perform severaliterations in parallel rather than in a single iterative loop, or tootherwise manipulate and optimize run-time and performance metricswithout fundamentally changing the inputs or final outputs. For example,in some embodiments break conditions may be placed after lines 910 tospeed up the operation, or the conditional statements may be replacedwith a case-switch. In some embodiments, rather than iterating over allcontent provider identifiers at step 806, in some embodiments the codemay be rewritten so control circuitry 504 is instructed to evaluatemultiple content provider identifiers simultaneously on a plurality ofprocessors or processor threads, lowering the number of iterationsneeded and potentially speeding up computation time.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for recommending mediacontent to users based on the users' media preferences. It should benoted that process 1000, or any step thereof, could occur on, or beprovided by, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 5-6. For example, process1000 may be executed by control circuitry 504 (FIG. 5) as instructed bythe media guidance application (e.g., implemented on any of the devicesshown and described in FIG. 6).

In step 1002, the media guidance application receives, at a server, arequest from a user, over a communications network, to access mediaassets from a first content provider, wherein the first content provideris associated with a cloud-based aggregator of a plurality of contentproviders. For example, the media guidance application may receive arequest from the user to access a music album from a first music serviceprovider.

In step 1004, the media guidance application determines, at the server,a media preference for the user based on the request. For example, themedia guidance application may determine the media preference to be themusic album identified in the user's request.

In step 1006, the media guidance application retrieves, at the server, alist of media assets available from each of the plurality of contentproviders. For example, the media guidance application may retrieve alist of music albums available from all of the content providersassociated with the cloud-based aggregator.

In step 1008, the media guidance application identifies, at the server,a media asset available from a second content provider based on themedia preference, wherein the second media provider is associated withthe cloud-based aggregator. For example, a second music service providermay be associated with the cloud-based aggregator and the media guidanceapplication may identify the music album as being available from thesecond music service provider.

In step 1010, the media guidance application transmits, over thecommunications network, a recommendation, on a display screen, for themedia asset without indicating the second content provider to the user.For example, the media guidance application may transmit arecommendation of the music album from the second music serviceprovider, to be displayed for the user without indicating that thesecond music service provider is the source of the music album.

In step 1012, the media guidance application receives, at the server, afirst recommendation credit from the cloud-based aggregator in responseto transmitting the recommendation. For example, the media guidanceapplication may receive a recommendation credit for the first musicservice provider for transmitting the recommendation of the music album.

In some embodiments, the media preference uniquely identifies a mediaasset that is of interest to the user. For example, the media preferencemay be the title of a music album, or any other identifier of the mediaasset.

In some embodiments, the media preference includes media assetattributes that the user is interested in. For example, the mediapreference may include a media asset type, genre, rating, length,artists, etc. that the user is interested in. For example, the mediapreference may be a list of media asset attributes such as song,country, and Kanye West.

In some embodiments, the media asset is not available from the firstcontent provider. For example, the music album that the user isinterested in may not be available for listening from the first musicservice provider.

In some embodiments, the recommendation includes a link to the mediaasset from the second content provider. For example, the recommendationmay include a link that the user may click on to view the media assetfrom the second content provider.

In some embodiments, the first recommendation credit is a monetary fee.For example, the first recommendation credit may be a digital payment.For example, the first recommendation credit may be money that isexchanged digitally.

In some embodiments, the first recommendation credit is a digital creditadded to an account associated with the first content provider. Forexample, the media guidance application may add and subtractrecommendation credits from an account associated with the first contentprovider, keeping track of the total amount of recommendation creditsthat the first content provider possesses. The digital credits may beexchanged for money or other benefits. In some embodiments, the digitalcredits may be exchanged at the request of the content provider. In someembodiments, the digital credits may be exchanged at the end of apredetermined time period.

In some embodiments, the cloud-based aggregator receives a secondrecommendation credit from the second content provider. For example,after recommending a music album on a second music service provider to auser, the media guidance application may receive a recommendation creditfrom the second music service provider. In some embodiments, the secondrecommendation credit has a value that is greater than or equal to thevalue of the first recommendation credit.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may generate fordisplay, on the display screen, a menu, associated with the cloud-basedaggregator, for receiving requests from the user to access media assetsfrom the first content provider, wherein the menu does not indicate thatthe media assets are from the first content provider. For example, themedia guidance application may generate for display, on the user'sdisplay, a menu of songs and albums available from a first music serviceprovider, without indicating that the first music service provider isthe source of the media assets.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may receive from thecloud-based aggregator a verification of a right of the first user toaccess media assets from the second content provider. For example, themedia guidance application may receive, from the cloud-based aggregator,verification that the user has the right to access media assets from asecond music service provider. The media guidance application may, inresponse to receiving from the cloud-based aggregator the verificationof the right of the second user to access media assets from the firstcontent provider, search for the media asset available from the secondcontent provider based on the media preference. For example, afterverifying that the user has the right to access media content from thesecond music service provider, the media guidance application may searchthe second music service provider for the song or album that the user isinterested in.

The above-described embodiments of the present disclosure are presentedfor purposes of illustration and not of limitation, and the presentdisclosure is limited only by the claims that follow. Furthermore, itshould be noted that the features and limitations described in any oneembodiment may be applied to any other embodiment herein, and flowchartsor examples relating to one embodiment may be combined with any otherembodiment in a suitable manner, done in different orders, or done inparallel. In addition, the systems and methods described herein may beperformed in real time. It should also be noted, the systems and/ormethods described above may be applied to, or used in accordance with,other systems and/or methods.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of recommending media content to usersviewing over-the-top content, the method comprising: receiving, at aserver, a request from a user, over a communications network, to accessmedia assets from a first content provider that is specified in therequest, wherein the first content provider is associated with acloud-based aggregator of a plurality of content providers; in responseto receiving the request: determining, at the server, a media preferencefor the user based on the request; determining, at the server, based onthe media preference, a media asset that is of interest to the user;determining, at the server, that the media asset is not available fromthe first content provider; in response to determining that the mediaasset is not available from the first content provider: determining, atthe server, a second content provider that is not specified in therequest that provides the media asset based at least in part on anincentive credit provided by the second content provider forrecommending the media asset from the second content provider, whereinthe second content provider is associated with the cloud-basedaggregator; and transmitting, over the communications network, a commandto cause display of a recommendation, on a display screen, for the mediaasset not available from the first content provider, without indicatingthe media asset is from a source other than the first content provider;and receiving, at the server, a first recommendation credit from thecloud-based aggregator in response to transmitting the command.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the media preference uniquely identifies themedia asset that is of interest to the user.
 3. The method of claim 1,wherein the media preference includes media asset attributes that theuser is interested in.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein therecommendation includes a link to the media asset from the secondcontent provider.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the firstrecommendation credit is a monetary fee.
 6. The method of claim 1,wherein the first recommendation credit is a digital credit added to anaccount associated with the first content provider.
 7. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the cloud-based aggregator receives a secondrecommendation credit from the second content provider, and wherein thesecond recommendation credit is of greater than or equal to a value ofthe first recommendation credit.
 8. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising generating for display, on the display screen, a menu,associated with the cloud-based aggregator, for receiving requests fromthe user to access media assets from the first content provider, whereinthe menu does not indicate that the media assets are from the firstcontent provider.
 9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:receiving from the cloud-based aggregator a verification of a right ofthe user to access media assets from the second content provider; and inresponse to receiving from the cloud-based aggregator the verificationof the right of the user to access media assets from the second contentprovider, searching for the media asset available from the secondcontent provider based on the media preference.
 10. A system ofrecommending media content to users viewing over-the-top content, thesystem comprising: control circuitry configured to: receive, at aserver, a request from a user, over a communications network, to accessmedia assets from a first content provider that is specified in therequest, wherein the first content provider is associated with acloud-based aggregator of a plurality of content providers; in responseto receiving the request: determine, at the server, a media preferencefor the user based on the request; determine, at the server, based onthe media preference, a media asset that is of interest to the user;determine, at the server, that the media asset is not available from thefirst content provider; in response to determining that the media assetis not available from the first content provider: determine, at theserver, a second content provider that is not specified in the requestthat provides the media asset based at least in part on an incentivecredit provided by the second content provider for recommending themedia asset from the second content provider, wherein the second contentprovider is associated with the cloud-based aggregator; and transmit,over the communications network, a command to cause display of arecommendation, on a display screen, for the media asset not availablefrom the first content provider without indicating the media asset isfrom a source other than the first content provider; and receive, at theserver, a first recommendation credit from the cloud-based aggregator inresponse to transmitting the command.
 11. The system of claim 10,wherein the media preference uniquely identifies the media asset that isof interest to the user.
 12. The system of claim 10, wherein the mediapreference includes media asset attributes that the user is interestedin.
 13. The system of claim 10, wherein the recommendation includes alink to the media asset from the second content provider.
 14. The systemof claim 10, wherein the first recommendation credit is a monetary fee.15. The system of claim 10, wherein the first recommendation credit is adigital credit added to an account associated with the first contentprovider.
 16. The system of claim 10, wherein the cloud-based aggregatorreceives a second recommendation credit from the second contentprovider, and wherein the second recommendation credit is of greaterthan or equal to a value of the first recommendation credit.
 17. Thesystem of claim 10, wherein the control circuitry is further configuredto generate for display, on the display screen, a menu, associated withthe cloud-based aggregator, for receiving requests from the user toaccess media assets from the first content provider, wherein the menudoes not indicate that the media assets are from the first contentprovider.
 18. The system of claim 17, wherein the control circuitry isfurther configured to: receive from the cloud-based aggregator averification of a right of the user to access media assets from thesecond content provider; and in response to receiving from thecloud-based aggregator the verification of the right of the user toaccess media assets from the second content provider, search for themedia asset available from the second content provider based on themedia preference.